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A review by mementolore
The Last 8 by Laura Pohl
What if the aliens invaded and the only survivor was the strong female teen character? (I say this as an enthusiast of the trope btw). What if, six months in, she found out she wasn't the only survivor?
The Last 8 has a lot of really strong points. It features a very diverse unlikely family ("everyone at the end of the world is gay") of nerdy teens who need each other during the alien invasion. I do love the aro/bi - i see some aroace rep in recent YA, but less so with just aro folks - rep with Clover, the main character. often times, the lack of romantic interest is left to fuckboys in YA fiction, not badass girls who are just not that into it (and also trying to survive the apocalypse). They aren't all white and american either, which is cool.
Clover, as the MC, is very driven and at the same time, broken from the survivor guilt. This was actually the most important point for me and what really drew me in, since it's pretty clear that an alien invasion would harm someone's mental health, even more when you consider she stays alone for six months after her world is destroyed. For a story about alien invasions, it's pretty realistic. Other characters have to deal with grief and burnout just the same and we get to see their journey from comfort to hope, to cynism and all the way back again.
The pacing here is fun and keeps you going, with multiple plot twists; some are more easy to guess and foreshadowed, others will in fact blow your mind, but still, the twists and turns of this story make it very cinematic and full of action.
The only issues I had were that I wanted to get to know some of the secondary characters better and that a few of the alien conflicts parts went on a little too long.
But it also has a very metaphoric sense to it because it's also a story abou the sense of heroism and what draws the line between caution and complacency, between what is the "us" and what is the "other", what can and what can't - or shouldn't - be saved and what truly matters at the end of the world. Aliens coming over or not, this is what it means to be human.
The Last 8 has a lot of really strong points. It features a very diverse unlikely family ("everyone at the end of the world is gay") of nerdy teens who need each other during the alien invasion. I do love the aro/bi - i see some aroace rep in recent YA, but less so with just aro folks - rep with Clover, the main character. often times, the lack of romantic interest is left to fuckboys in YA fiction, not badass girls who are just not that into it (and also trying to survive the apocalypse). They aren't all white and american either, which is cool.
Clover, as the MC, is very driven and at the same time, broken from the survivor guilt. This was actually the most important point for me and what really drew me in, since it's pretty clear that an alien invasion would harm someone's mental health, even more when you consider she stays alone for six months after her world is destroyed. For a story about alien invasions, it's pretty realistic. Other characters have to deal with grief and burnout just the same and we get to see their journey from comfort to hope, to cynism and all the way back again.
The pacing here is fun and keeps you going, with multiple plot twists; some are more easy to guess and foreshadowed, others will in fact blow your mind, but still, the twists and turns of this story make it very cinematic and full of action.
The only issues I had were that I wanted to get to know some of the secondary characters better and that a few of the alien conflicts parts went on a little too long.
But it also has a very metaphoric sense to it because it's also a story abou the sense of heroism and what draws the line between caution and complacency, between what is the "us" and what is the "other", what can and what can't - or shouldn't - be saved and what truly matters at the end of the world. Aliens coming over or not, this is what it means to be human.